Author of the entry: Mariano Saggiomo

This monument to Giovan Francesco di Sangro, third Prince of Sansevero, fills the first lacuna in the sequence of seventeenth-century tombs in the Chapel, thereby serving the dynastic-celebratory project pursued by Raimondo, who, as is well known, to ‘correspond entirely to the founder’s idea, decided to continue in chronological order the mausolea of all the lords of […] his house from the year of the foundation […] up to the present day’ (Origlia Paolino 1754, pp. 364–365). We know in fact that at the time when Raimondo ‘set out […] his ideas regarding the family church at length’ (ibid., p. 364), the latter was adorned cum quatuor ex marmore memoriis (the reference, drawn from a pastoral visitation of 1649, is in Saggiomo 2021–2022, p. 506), namely the monuments of the first, second and fourth Princes of Sansevero, together with that of the Patriarch of Alexandria, who, however, never inherited the title as he was in holy orders.

If the presence in the Chapel of a bust of the third Prince by Cosimo Fanzago (de Sangro 1991, pp. 194, 220) is a claim without foundation (the ‘bust with hands joined in prayer’ of ‘Francesco’ placed ‘to the left of the high altar’, recorded by Fogaccia 1945, p. 143, is an evident error for the tomb of the Patriarch), it is nevertheless probable that the absence of any work celebrating Giovan Francesco in the Chapel’s early decades is to be explained by his unfortunate biographical circumstances, knowledge of which, moreover, must already from an early date have been fragmentary and confused. More recently, this led Raffaele Colapietra (1986, pp. 65–66) to argue that after the death of the third Prince, his brother Alessandro assumed his title and adopted his name, also calling himself Giovan Francesco, in the last few months of his life; however, this hypothesis, already contorted in itself, is untenable given the present state of knowledge.

According to the inscription commissioned by Raimondo, presumably in 1752, Giovan Francesco fought in Africa at the head of a select group of nobles financed by himself, and, having fallen ill, he died on 24 May 1627. Clearly contradicting this – and indicative of the early confusion surrounding the figure – a source of 1674 reports that ‘as the wars had ceased in his time, he did not fail to show his courage on every occasion that arose’ (Arminio Monforte 1674, p. 156; for a fuller account of his figure, see pp. 156–161). Better known are the episodes of the nobleman’s excommunication, owing to his failure to pay certain tithes due to the Bishop of Sansevero, and the latter’s attempt to have him disinterred from the church of Castelnuovo (today Castelnuovo della Daunia, in the province of Foggia), where he had been buried, as it would seem, with the aim of casting his remains on unconsecrated ground. The body, however, was not found, ‘having been transferred to Naples’ (Chioccarello 1721, p. 103), so ‘His Holiness instructed Cardinal Buoncompagno, Archbishop of Naples, to place under interdict the church in which he was located’, excommunicating ‘those who knew of it and had not immediately had him removed from the church’ (ibid., pp. 103–104). At that point, the Patriarch of Alexandria intervened, ensuring that Paolo, the third Prince’s son, reached an agreement with the bishop, paying him 150 ducats per year for a certain period (Fraccacreta 1834, p. 376). Later still, the Viceroy intervened, and having demonstrated the injustice of the Di Sangro excommunication, prevailed upon the Pope so ‘that the exhumation should not proceed’ (Chioccarello 1721, p. 104).

As for the marble, given the more certain attribution of the other monument-stoup to Neapolitan Francesco Celebrano (1729–1814) (credibly of 1766; cf. entry 17), some scholars have been inclined to assign the work in question to him as well (Picone 1959, p. 71; Fittipaldi 1974, p. 204; Rotili 1979; Fittipaldi 1980, p. 214), dating it approximately a decade earlier than the date of 1752 indicated in the inscription (Rotili 1979), which, according to Picone (1959, p. 71), was in any case to be considered well before the execution of the monument. Others, however, have linked the work to the Mestizia grande al naturale listed by Origlia Paolino (1754, p. 365) among those completed by Antonio Corradini before his death, a hypothesis more recently supported by credible stylistic comparisons with works certainly by the Venetian sculptor (see above all Cioffi 1984 and Cioffi 1994, pp. 16–26; cf. also Cogo 1996, pp. 320–321). The marble is also attributed to Corradini in the inventory of the goods remaining in the estate of Raimondo di Sangro drawn up in 1771 (fols. 105r–106v; cf. Attanasio 2011, p. 144), where it is further stated that the ‘winged woman […] in the act of weeping […] holds in her left hand a small oval with the bas-relief portrait’ of the Prince.

Since the oval, now lost, is absent from the relevant Wenzel lithograph (pl. XX), probably published in 1839, its disappearance must predate that year. Comparison between the graphic record and the present work also shows that it has been deprived of the branch once placed above the woman’s head, and that the shell containing holy water was originally positioned lower down on the left: both losses are reasonably attributable to the nineteenth-century collapse of the entrance wall; the same event must also account for the damage to the figure’s right wing (cf. Colonna di Stigliano 1895, esp. p. 34).

Essential bibliography on the work

Origlia Paolino Giangiuseppe, Istoria dello Studio di Napoli…, II, Naples, Giovanni di Simone, 1754, p. 365.

Inventario de’ beni rimasti nell’eredità del fu eccellentissimo don Raimondo di Sangro principe di Sansevero, Naples, notary Francesco de Maggio, 1771, copy of the document held at the Archivio Storico del Pio Monte della Misericordia di Napoli, d’Aquino di Caramanico collection, provisional shelfmark A.162, fols. 105r–106v.

Wenzel Franz, pl. XX representing the ‘Monumento di Giovan Francesco di Sangro’, belonging to a group of 32 lithographs of the sculptures of the Sansevero Chapel in Naples drawn by various authors and engraved by Wenzel c. 1839: the copy identified (lacking six lithographs) is held at the Biblioteca Nazionale di Napoli, shelfmark PALATINA Banc. 03.

Colonna di Stigliano Fabio, ‘La cappella Sansevero e D. Raimondo di Sangro’, in Napoli nobilissima, IV, 1895, 3, pp. 33–36, esp. p. 34.

Picone Marina, La Cappella Sansevero, Naples 1959, p. 71.

Fittipaldi Teodoro, ‘Giuseppe Sanmartino (III)’, in Arte Cristiana, LXII, 1974, pp. 199–224, esp. p. 204.

Rotili Mario, ‘Celebrano, Francesco’, in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, 23, Rome 1979, online: www.treccani.it/biografico.

Fittipaldi Teodoro, Scultura napoletana del Settecento, Naples 1980, p. 214.

Cioffi Rosanna, ‘Sulla scultura veneta del Settecento a Napoli: Antonio Corradini e la ‘Mestizia’ della Cappella Sansevero’, in Studi di Storia dell’Arte in memoria di Mario Rotili, Naples 1984, pp. 555–565.

Colapietra Raffaele, ‘Raimondo di Sangro e il Templum sepulcrale della Cappella Sansevero (I)’, in Napoli nobilissima, ser. III, XXV, 1986, pp. 62–79, esp. p. 66.

de Sangro Oderisio, Raimondo de Sangro e la Cappella Sansevero, Rome 1991, pp. 194, 218–220, no. 25.

Cioffi Rosanna, La Cappella Sansevero. Arte barocca e ideologia massonica, first edition: Salerno 1987; edition cited: Salerno 1994, pp. 16–26.

Cogo Bruno, Antonio Corradini scultore veneziano. 1688–1752, Este 1996, pp. 320–321, no. 48.

Napoli, la Cappella Sansevero e il Cristo velato. Naples, Sansevero Chapel and the Veiled Christ, texts by Marco Bussagli, photographs by Carlo Vannini, Bologna 2019, pp. 39, 47.

Comparative bibliography

Arminio Monforte Fulgenzio, Il trionfo del dolore. Funerali per la illustrissima ed eccellentissima signora… donna Giovanna di Sangro dei Marchesi di San Lucido, prencipessa di San Severo, celebrati in Torremaggiore nella chiesa di Santa Maria del Carmine… l’anno 1674, Naples, per Girolamo Fasulo, 1674, pp. 156–161.

Chioccarello Bartolomeo, Archivio della Reggia Giurisdizione del Regno di Napoli, Venice 1721, pp. 103–104.

Origlia Paolino Giangiuseppe, Istoria dello Studio di Napoli…, II, Naples, Giovanni di Simone, 1754, pp. 364–365.

Fraccacreta Matteo, Teatro topografico, storico-poetico della Capitanata…, IV, Naples 1834, p. 376.

Fogaccia Piero, Cosimo Fanzago, Bergamo 1945, p. 143.

Attanasio Sergio, In casa del principe di Sansevero. Architettura, invenzioni, inventari, Naples 2011, p. 144.

Saggiomo Mariano, Le chiese gentilizie napoletane di Età Moderna: per la ricostruzione storica di un fenomeno dimenticato, PhD thesis in Historical, Archaeological and Art-Historical Sciences, from the Federico II University of Naples, XXXIV cycle, under supervisors Francesco Caglioti and Bianca de Divitiis, academic year 2021–2022, pp. 501–552.

DOI: 10.82049/CATALOGO15